How It Began
by Char-chan
Summary: After the jocks play a cruel joke on Artie, he is left with memories of how his life in a wheelchair had all begun. Luckily, a mysterious girl helps him out. Artie/Tina friendship. Oneshot-set before the Pilot.


**title: How It Began**

**summary: After the jocks play a cruel joke on Artie, he is left with memories of how his life in a wheelchair had all begun. Luckily, a mysterious girl helps him out. Artie/Tina friendship. Oneshot- set before the Pilot.**

**author: Charlie-chan**

Artie had stayed extra late after school to practice with the jazz band for their first upcoming show of the new year. At the end of practice, the rest of the club hustled out while Artie took a little extra time to put his instrument equipment and guitar away and was the last to leave as usual. Readjusting the velcro on his fingerless gloves and pushing his thick glasses back on the top of his nose he finally made his way out of the band room.

The sun was beginning to set by the time Artie started to leave for home. Usually when he stayed after school this late he would have to make a call to special needs transportation to come pick him up since his family only had one car and his mom worked night shifts and couldn't get him this late. Artie wheeled himself towards the front door of the school and pushed the big, round button on the wall that automatically opened the large door for him while he wheeled himself through then down the long ramp from the main school building to the pathway to the side of the school where he usually got picked up.

While he made his way to the rendezvous spot, he heard laughing and loud talking echoing from behind him. *Must be the football team practicing late too- they did have their first game coming up soon* he thought. But it suddenly got really quiet; almost eerily quiet and he heard some footsteps start to make their way towards his direction. Artie reached his hand around to his backpack on the back of his chair to grab his cell phone but just as he unzipped the side pocket his hand froze. He could hear soft footsteps slowly stopping and rustling noises grouping up and breathing right behind him. Twisting his torso around as much as he could to see who it was, though he could barely do so since his paralysis only gave him limited movement of his torso and back, all he saw was a quick flash of a red jacket and then suddenly he was flying forward. The bully of a football player, Noel Puckerman, or Puck to his fellow gorilla-like buddies had grabbed the handles to Artie's wheelchair and had simply lifted up and forward making Artie fall out of the chair, spilling his body to the grassy ground.

"Ahaha! Hey wheels, I think you need to take a break from sitting around all day. Don't wanna get lazy now, do we? haha!" His accomplice's laughs echoed along with him as they turned around and left the opposite way. With Puck pushing the wheelchair, and his attached backpack, with as much force as he could it drifted and came to a stop halfway across the school yard and they left poor Artie on the ground and disappeared into the night, roaring with laughter and claps of high fives.

Artie was taken by so much surprise that he barely had enough mind to put his hands out in front of his face to brace himself from the impact of the rapidly oncoming ground. Quickly turning his head to the side and using his hands to push his shoulders and head off the ground, Artie yelled out, "Wait, please! Don't leave me here! Wait!" his pleas falling onto death ears and emptiness. A panicking sensation started rise in his gut. Usually when he fell out of his chair he had little problem hoisting himself back on it. But as he peered around he saw his chair was much too far away for him to make a crawl to it even. Plus his arms were already really tired from wheeling himself all around school today and the extra guitar practices didn't help his current situation much either.

It was starting to get dark out and there was really no one left at the school that he had noticed. He called out a few times to any hopeful passer-byers but no one was there. He wished he had grabbed his cell phone more quickly before this whole humiliating event had happened.

Pushing off of one gloved fist, he turned his torso around and with the other hand turned his legs with the rest of his body. Now that he was lying on his back, trying to calm his panicking mind, Artie stared up at the slowly darkening night sky. Flickers of stars could be seen peeking out from behind wispy clouds.

Glancing down to his lifeless legs that were sprawled out in front of him, a wave of thoughts and memories drifted into his mind.

It was almost a lifetime ago when Artie was able to walk and run around like the rest of the kids his age. He used to be a very active child and would love climbing on things and jumping around; much to the irritation of his busy parents. It wasn't until his younger brother had convinced him to climb to the top of the tallest tree in their Ohio home's yard that it had all come to an end. Artie reached the top of the large oak tree, leaning onto an outreached branch and called down to his brother, "I told you I could make it! Whoa! I can see the whole town from h.." suddenly the branch that he was leaning on gave a loud crack and he was falling very fast back down to the earth. A sickening thud had reached his ears along with a loud ringing noise. He laid their breathless, the wind being knocked out of his small body, and he stared up at the worried face of his brother. "..ge..t. he..lp.." he whispered as loud as he could.

The next few days of his life were hectic and frustrating. The way that Artie had landed on top of the broken branch from such a height had broken his back at the T7/8 vertebrae and had left him paralyzed from the waist down. His parents were a wreck and his younger brother was so guilt ridden, especially since Artie promised him he wouldn't tell anyone it was because of his double-dog-dare that he climbed up that fateful tree in the first place.

The sudden sound of a door slamming shut echoing through the air had brought Artie's thoughts back to the present. He squinted through the dark towards the school building and saw a dark clad figure walking down the stone steps towards the parking lot.

"WAIT! Hello?! Can you please help me?! Please! I.. I need help! Please!" he called out breathlessly towards the lone figure. The figure stood ridged and turned towards the distant voice and made its way over. Relieved that someone was still around to help him, he watched as the person walked then jogged a bit towards the sound of his voice. Passing under a street lamp nearby he saw it was a girl. She had long black hair with blue streaks and was wearing black clothes full of clothespins.

"Aaare yyou okkay?" she implored nervously, kneeling down next to him in the grass. Sighing a breath of relief, "Now I am.. thank you so much for coming over!" he grinned widely.

The dark haired girl stared at the boy lying on the ground and tried to place him. He looked familiar but she just couldn't quite remember.

"Wwhats wwrong?" she implored looking him over but not seeing anything that would inhibit him from getting up.

Pointing to his lone wheelchair in the distance he looked up at her and grinned an embarrassed smirk. She suddenly recognized him as the boy in the wheelchair that she had World History class with- not recognizing him out of the chair.

"Oh!" she stood up and ran over to the chair and wheeled it back to the poor boy sprawled on the ground.

Glancing from him to the spot the wheelchair was at she could only figure someone had done this to him. No way he fell out on his own from that distance.

"Dddo you nneed help getting bback on?" she inquired, looking from the ground to the chair.

Artie thanked her and used a specialized pushing technique to hoist himself back into the chair. After situating his body back into the sitting position and setting his feet onto the foot plates, he stared up at his stuttering savior.

"Thank you so much!" he reached a glove hand out to shake hers.

"My name is Artie Abrams by the way" he beamed a goofy embarrassed smile as he gratefully shook her hand.

"Mmmy name is Ttina. Tttina Cohen-Chchang" she smiled back, shaking his hand.

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Author notes: Wow! I can't believe I actually wrote a fic after SOOO long. Glee is just THAT good I guess, hehe. Hope you guys enjoyed it. I really cannot wait to hear the real story of how Artie came to be in that wheelchair. But this is just how I imagined him and Tina first met (I totally predict they will end up being an item eventually) and how I see his past in my mind. sorry for any weird formatting- have never used 's new document manager :/. but thanks for reading! ^-^/


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